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What to prepare before opening a shop

An e-commerce project almost never stalls on development. It stalls on the catalogue that is not ready, unusable photos, the distance selling contract nobody requested and the carrier account still being processed. Those four things depend on you or on third parties, not on me.

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A preparation checklist beside a camera, a product box, a contract and a parcel.

The catalogue, and nothing else, sets the timetable

On projects that slip, the cause is almost always the same: the catalogue arrives late, or arrives in a state that blocks importing. A usable catalogue fits in a spreadsheet, one row per sellable item — so one row per variant, not one per model — with stable columns: unique reference, name, description, price, VAT rate, weight, stock quantity, category, image filename.

The reference is the most important and most neglected column. It has to be unique, stable over time and identical in every other tool you use: management software, labels, stock sheets. Without it, any later catalogue update becomes manual reconciliation, and any connection to an external system becomes bespoke development.

Second trap: the description. Copy taken from the manufacturer’s site ends up identical on dozens of competing shops. It is not a punished offence, it is simply content with no reason to rank above anyone else’s. Twenty written descriptions beat a thousand copied ones.

What you will be asked for

  • The catalogue as a spreadsheet, one row per sellable item, with unique references. It is the longest piece to produce and it governs everything else.
  • Product images as separate files, named after the reference, at a resolution above the final display size. A small photo recovered from an old site will never become sharp again.
  • The company’s legal details: name, legal form, registration number, VAT number where applicable, and the hosting provider’s details.
  • Terms and conditions of sale, written for your business rather than copied. They bind you legally: this is not filler text.
  • Cancellation periods, returns policy and warranty policy, matching what you will genuinely do.
  • The distance selling contract with your bank, or an account opened with a payment provider, plus the supporting documents those parties require.
  • Carrier accounts and, if you offer pickup points, membership of the corresponding network. These take processing time and do not speed up.

Why this order and not another

  1. Third parties first, because their clock is not yours

    Payment and shipping are the only items whose lead time is entirely outside your control. They start on day one of the decision, not when the site is ready to receive them.

  2. The catalogue next, because it is long

    Building a clean catalogue takes days of work, often weeks. That production can run while the site is being built, provided the spreadsheet format was fixed at the start.

  3. Photos in parallel, with one simple rule

    Always shoot larger than needed and always name after the reference. Resizing is automatic; renaming two thousand files is not, once nobody knows which file belongs to which product.

  4. Legal text before launch, not after

    These pages are mandatory in distance selling, and part of it must be explicitly accepted during checkout. Producing them at the last minute means copying them from elsewhere, and therefore making them inaccurate.

  5. Editorial content last, but not never

    Brand pages, buying guides, an about page: these are what separate a shop from a catalogue. They can arrive after opening, provided someone is tasked with writing them.

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Frequently asked questions

In what format should the catalogue be supplied?
A spreadsheet exportable as a semicolon or comma separated file, with a header row and one row per sellable item. The software that produced it does not matter; what matters is that columns stay stable from the first row to the last and that no cell contains an unescaped line break.
Is one photo per variant needed?
At least one per colour, since that is the variation buyers want to see. One per size serves no purpose. The practical rule: photograph what changes visually, and attach the image to the matching characteristic rather than to the whole product, otherwise the gallery shows ten colours for an item the customer already chose in blue.
How long does opening a payment account take?
Entirely dependent on the provider and your file, and that delay does not compress. What is certain is that the file requires company documents and sometimes a description of the activity, and that a business judged risky lengthens the review. Start the request when the project is decided, not when the site is ready.
Can we open with a partial catalogue?
Yes, and it is often preferable. Opening with fifty complete records beats waiting six months for a thousand rough ones. The condition is that the modelling is right from the start: adding products is easy, fixing variant structure afterwards touches addresses and therefore rankings.
Who supplies the legal notices and terms of sale?
You, or the legal professional you consult. I publish the pages, wire acceptance into checkout and make sure the accepted text is archived with the order. I do not write the content: a wrong clause binds you, and exposing you to that is not my job.

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